It is known to use multifilament skirts in association with fishing lures to enhance attractiveness to game fish and to protect the lure, with varying degrees of success, from unwanted entanglement or engagement with weeds or submerged obstructions such as limbs and rocks. Such devices typically comprise soft, silicone-based, elastomeric filaments and typically are attached behind a lure head such that the filaments extend rearward from the attachment point. The filaments are often produced in colors anticipated to attract game fish and may include or incorporate strands or flecks of reflective material.
Often such multifilament skirts are combined with single hooks for use with live bait such as worms, crayfish or minnows, or with treble hooks often provided with artificial lures. In use, such filaments typically trail behind the head of a lure as the lure is pulled through a body of water such as a lake or river, the primary advantages of such filaments being enhancement of lure motion and color.
Many of such filaments are too flexible and soft to effectively deflect weeds or protect the hook from snagging on underwater obstructions. Those that do effectively protect the hook typically comprise a stiff plastic extension or a bundle of stiff plastic fibers positioned ahead of the hook point to deflect weeds away from the hook point as it is pulled through the water and to deflect the hook itself from snagging underwater obstructions. The effectiveness of such structures at protecting the lure, however, also tends to reduce the ability of the hook to engage the mouthparts of a striking fish. Other multifilament devices essentially surround the lure in a basket or cone of rearward projecting filaments. While presumably effective, the attractive motion of such a device is typically limited to undulation of the filaments as the device is drawn through the water.